Randy Carlyle is not unlike so much of his roster. He was a better coach last year than he has been this year.

He had a plan, a vision, a sense of what he wanted the Toronto Maple Leafs to be. And there was no better example of Carlyle’s ability to prepare his hockey club than the Leafs performance in Game 2 of their playoff series against the Boston Bruins.

They had been blasted in Game 1, embarrassed really, and he got them to play a certain way against the Bruins, countering well, reacting to the Boston pinching game, winning battles on loose pucks with speed and strength.

Now, with a wafer-thin roster, with Carlyle’s trust in some of his players bordering on the curious, with the Leafs seemingly without an idea of how to compete without the puck, they have nights like they did Thursday against the Dallas Stars.

A night where the standings say they got two points ­­­— and that is the goal — but you had hold your breath so much of the evening, wondering if Jonathan Bernier could make another save, if his suspectable defencemen will give the puck away, if his forwards can pick up trailers and cutters.

They beat the Dallas Stars 3-2 in overtime last night. I know that to be true because the scoreboard, 15 minutes after the game, still reads that way. It also reads shots on goal: Dallas 50, Toronto 24.

At home. To the tenth-place team in the strong Western Conference. To a team with more goals against than for.

To a team with four wins in their past 10. That is not encouraging in any way,

And the Leafs, without David Bolland, without Joffrey Lupul, without Tyler Bozak, and even when they had them, can’t seem to understand or execute what is they are supposed to do.

Last season, in a shortened time frame, Carlyle had a blueprint. Teams didn’t like playing the Leafs. Goaltending was fine, but they needed super-human netminding, like they got Thursday night, and a couple of bad misses by Dallas players, to eke out a win.

The points are important, especially after losing five games in a row. But you have to look for signs — something to build on, something to believe in, and it’s awfully hard to trust almost anything about this hockey club at a time when they are supposed to have advanced beyond all this.

Carlyle is playing a short bench with all the injuries, trusting few of the callups, some of his own roster players, and then putting faith in some that is hard to understand.

A year ago, Mark Fraser was a terrific story with the Leafs. He made the team unexpectedly. He led the club in plus-minus, if you believe at all in plus-minus. He played a regular shift and killed penalties on the one of the best penalty-killing teams in the NHL.

That was last season.

This season, Fraser doesn’t look like an NHL defenceman. He is a step slow, lacks quickness and confidence. When the puck is in his end, too often it doesn’t come out.

He makes weak play after weak play, yet rarely misses a shift.

It’s almost as if Carlyle doesn’t notice. But he must. And his stubbornness here is costing his hockey club.

One of the Leafs problems, across the board, is how few of the players who made progress last year have stepped up in any way this season. A year ago, Cody Franson was a wonderful story, just like his then-partner, Fraser.

In the Boston series, Franson looked like he was on the verge of breaking through as a top end NHL defenceman. His old general manager, David Poile, couldn’t believe how far he had progressed from his days in Nashville.

Just not this year. He seems a step slower. He seems less intense and more laissez faire.

At times, he seems out of position or lazy. Whatever it is, he isn’t getting better.

“Let’s focus on the players we have,” said Carlyle after the 3-2 win, and he was talking about having his team not making excuses for their poor play.

So let’s focus on those players. Fraser looks like an AHL defenceman and Paul Ranger isn’t much better. Every time the Leafs have a bad night, they bench Morgan Rielly. As if he is the one to blame.

There seems to be two kinds of players on the team. Those Carlyle believes in, no matter how much they screw up, and those he won’t trust at all.

Thursday night, Jerry D’Amigo was called up from the Marlies to play a role on the wing. Years ago, Bob Johnson told me you could always call up an AHL player and get one performance out of him on adrenalin alone.

It was in the second game and the third game you could determine whether he could play or not.

Carlyle decided before the game. D’Amigo played 4 minutes, two seconds Thursday. Peter Holland played over five minutes. Fraser McLaren played just over three minutes. Who knows if they can do what Trevor Smith is doing when you get so little ice.

Carlyle could short bench his team in Anaheim when he had Teemu Selanne and Corey Perry and Ryan Getzlaf up front with Chris Pronger and Scott Niedermayer on defence. But you can’t run that short a bench when half your team isn’t contributing much and clearly he wants little to do with four of his 12 forwards.

Carlyle needs to find a way to extend his roster, trust more players, get his Leafs to stop chasing the play.

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